


Wake Up

by carmillanegovanlis



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hollstein - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 13:50:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3980377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carmillanegovanlis/pseuds/carmillanegovanlis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hollstein fun times, this also gets pretty angsty so, just a fair warning. Possible tw: death amongst other things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wake Up

Carmilla brushed the hair out of her face as she crossed the street from her dorm to the campus library. She got assigned a research paper a couple days ago and she decided that she’d start looking for some information today since she didn’t really have anything else planned. She approached the red brick building and pulled on the front door to go inside. Once she got in, she decided to make sure that she brought her library card with her, it would be just her luck if she had forgotten it in her dorm. She reached around to the back of her jeans and felt the plastic rectangular card in them. Relieved, she made her way towards one of the computers to look up a book that she thought would be suitable for the topic she was doing her paper on.

After about 20 minutes of browsing the library’s catalogue, she decided on one book that looked like it had all the information she’d need on the topic. She wrote down the section it was in, logged off of the computer, and made her way to the non-fiction section. Once she got to the isle she needed, she started looking up and down the rows of books to try to find the number she needed… but it was gone. The catalogue said that it was available. Maybe it just hadn’t been updated? Or maybe someone else had it before her and it just hadn’t been re-shelved? Either way, she decided the best thing to do would be to ask the librarian at the front desk.

The librarian was a very shrewd looking old woman, her grey hair was up in a messy bun and she always had this expression plastered on her face like she’d just been kicked in the shins. Carmilla wasn’t afraid of her though. As she approached the desk, the old woman looked her up and down and then made a huffing noise, as if she didn’t believe Carmilla deserved the time of day. Carmilla scoffed, but she decided that she’d came here to do research, not get into some petty argument with an old woman.

“Can you tell me if this book is in?” Carmilla asked, handing the librarian the piece of paper that she’d written the information down on.

“No manners.” The librarian huffed. Carmilla rolled her eyes. She took the slip of paper out of Carmilla’s hand and squinted at the writing. “Yes, this book is in, but that lovely young lady over there in the blue sweater is currently browsing it.” She pointed behind Carmilla to a table of a brunette haired woman in a navy blue sweater. She had about 13 or so books opened on the table in front of her, and she looked very busy.

“Thanks.” Carmilla muttered. She made her way over to the table with the woman and the book she needed.

When she approached, the girl looked like she was in a trance, she was frantically flipping through pages of more than one book, her dark brown eyes skimming the pages more quickly than Carmilla had thought possible. But she hadn’t noticed Carmilla’s presence.

Carmilla cleared her throat loudly which caused the woman in front of her to jump a little bit in surprise. Carmilla held back a laugh.

“Hi, sorry to disrupt… whatever is going on here, but I was told by the librarian that you have a book that I’m looking for. I was wondering if I could possibly check that out.”

The woman looked up at her. “I need that book.” She stated, looking directly into Carmilla’s eyes.

“I didn’t even tell you the title of it.” Carmilla said, irritated.

“Well, if I have it here with me, I need it.” She said, expression unchanged.

“Can I at least look to make sure that you do, in fact, have it here with you?”

“I guess so, but make it snappy, I’m doing important research here.”

Carmilla rolled her eyes and began to pick up each book, making sure not to lose the woman’s place in them, before checking the title. After about the 7th book, she found the one she was looking for and let out a sigh.

“Look, I need this book, and you already have so many more here, why do you need this one in particular?” Carmilla asked, taking the book off of the table and pointing at the front cover.

The woman stood up and grabbed the book out of Carmilla’s hands. Carmilla was taken aback, but her quick reflexes allowed her to snatch the book back from her.

“Hey what’s your problem? I _need_ this book for a research paper, and you already have plenty of others!” She started tapping her foot, she was becoming impatient with this lady, she was acting like a spoiled child.

“This is the most important one out of them all.” She said, trying to grab the book back from Carmilla, but this time she was prepared, and didn’t allow the woman in front of her to take it from her again.

“Look,” Carmilla said, exasperated, “I’m not really in the mood to get into a fight over nothing so I’ll make you a deal: you can check out the book, but I get it every other week. The check-out lasts for a month right? So we each get the book for two weeks. We can alternate. You can have it the first week, I get it the second week, and so on.”

The woman in front of her huffed, but she nodded her head in agreement. “But if anything happens to the book while you’re using it, I’ll tell the librarian that you stole it from me and vandalized it without my consent. Got it?”

Carmilla sighed, but agreed. She really wasn’t in the mood for this, she just wanted to get a book for her research paper. The woman before her pulled out a piece of paper and a pen and started scribbling something on it and then handed it to Carmilla. ‘Laura, dorm 223.’

“You’re Laura I’m guessing? Looks like you live in my building.” Carmilla asked. She nodded her head. “I’m Carmilla. I’d say nice to meet you, but you’re not exactly the friendly type, are you cupcake?” Laura looked like she was about to argue with her before Carmilla interrupted with, “Don’t worry, I’m not either, let’s just keep our interaction minimal and I think we’ll be fine.” And with that, Carmilla gave Laura back the book, and turned around to leave, but before she got more than two feet away, Laura called after her.

“See you next week, nerd.”

Exactly a week has passed since Carmilla made the arrangement with Laura at the library. It was a little after 5 pm, Carmilla figured she’d go up to Laura’s room, so she did. When she reached the wooden door, she knocked a few times. No response. She knocked one last time, and this time the door creaked open a little bit. She decided to peek her head inside, even if Laura wasn’t there, maybe the book was.

The room was quite dark, there were no lights on, so Carmilla felt around the wall near the door until she could find the light switch. After a minute of fumbling, her hand hit the switch and she turned the lights on. She ventured further into the dorm, only to find papers and books scattered all over the room. It looked like someone had ransacked the place. She figured that Laura wasn’t _this_ messy normally because she seemed like the kind of person that was pretty uptight. Uptight people aren’t usually this messy right? Anyways, Carmilla decided that she’d look around the impossibly messy room for the book anyways, she was already in here anyways right? She looked over towards the window towards Laura’s metal desk and started making her way over to it, which proved to be quite a challenge because of the mess of books on the floor.

She looked through a couple of the drawers in the desk before she felt a hand on her shoulder. It made her jump, so she turned around. It was Laura. And she looked _furious._

“What are you doing?!” She practically screamed at Carmilla.

“It’s been a week, and I need that book for my research paper. I kind of thought that you’d be here since it’s getting late, but I guess I was wrong. I tried to knock but there was no answer, and the door creaked open so I figured I’d just take a look around and-“

“Take a look around? Look at my room! It’s a mess! If you were going to look for a stupid book, you could have at least been respectful about it. Look at this, what am I supposed to do with my room looking like a tornado just blew through?”

“I swear your room was already like this when I came in. I thought it was a bit odd that your door was open already but-“

“Do you really think I believe you for a second? You know what, the deal’s off. You can leave now. If this is really how you’re going to treat me, you don’t get to use the book that _I_ checked out. You know where the door is. Now leave.” Laura demanded.

“Look I didn’t do this ok? And I really _really_ need that book for my paper,” Carmilla sighed, she was out ideas except for this one, “as a gesture of good faith, I’ll help you clean up this pigsty if it’ll allow me to do my research.”

“Fine.” Laura said reluctantly. And they started cleaning together.

After about 3 hours, the room was organized into, what Carmilla assumed, was its old organized self. Laura found the book and gave it to Carmilla, apologizing that she made Carmilla stay and clean. She said she felt bad because it was irrational of her to assume that Carmilla would do something like that to her room. Carmilla said it was fine and she turned to leave, when her stomach growled.

“You hungry?” Laura asked. “I could use something myself to be honest. If you want to stay, I can make you something to eat. I don’t have much but I’m sure I can make something.”

“Frankly that’s the least you can do after I helped you clean your room. Which wasn’t even my fault by the way.”

“I know, I apologized remember?”

“Yeah yeah.” Carmilla made her way to the couch that was set up against the opposite side of the room from the kitchen. She sat down and Laura started going through her cupboards to find food. She scoured up some easy mac and toast. Carmilla figured it was better than whatever she’d end up eating at her own dorm anyways, plus free food.

Laura popped the easy mac into the microwave and the toast into the toaster and got out two glasses to fill with water. She went to the couch where Carmilla was now sitting and gave her one of the glasses, and set the other glass on the table next to the couch. The microwave dinged and Laura made her way back into the kitchen and finished making the easy macs and buttered the toast before bringing them with her back over to the couch, where she sat down next to Carmilla. They ate in silence for a while, but Carmilla couldn’t resist the urge to make fun of Laura for making _the worst_ easy mac she’d ever consumed in her life, and that got them talking.

After about 2 hours of talking and dining later, Laura started to fall asleep on her couch, and Carmilla took that as her cue to leave. She grabbed the book from Laura’s desk and quietly made her way out of the room as to not wake Laura up. She carefully closed the door and made her way back to her own dorm room.

One week later Carmilla made her way back to Laura’s dorm to return the book. She reached her door and gave it a knock, and this time Laura’s actually there. She came to the door and Carmilla handed her the book, which she took and placed on the desk before inviting Carmilla inside. Carmilla agrees to go inside, in hopes for more free food, and is shocked to find that Laura actually wants to sit down and have a conversation with her about the book. Maybe she shouldn’t have been surprised, Laura did seem like an academic after all, but given the way they started out, Carmilla was surprised that Laura would take the time to get to know her at all.

Carmilla found out that the only reason Laura had the book in the first place was for some ‘light reading’ as she put it, which sort of made Carmilla angry because she had made it into such a big deal when, in reality, she didn’t need to have the book at all. But the more she thought about it, the more it made her smile, because nobody else had ever really stood up to her like that. Carmilla is a pretty assertive person, and usually once she sets her sights on something, she gets it. But that’s not how it was with Laura.

“So you chose to get a stats book for some ‘light reading’ huh? That’s super nerdy.”

“Yeah well, I like learning,” she shrugged her shoulders and smiled, “what can I say?”

And as it turned out, there was a lot Laura could say about stats. Like a lot. 2 hours’ worth of information actually. And after they finished talking about stats, they started talking about school in general, and where they wanted to go with their lives after graduation. Laura wanted to be a journalist, which didn’t surprise Carmilla at all, in fact she told her that she thought she’d be good at it. Laura seemed to really appreciate that because she said that most people tend to tell her that she should get over that dream and try to get a degree in something more ‘useful’.

After quite some time, Carmilla started to drift off to sleep on the couch, and Laura let her. She put a blanket over her so that she wouldn’t get cold before slumping over to her own bed and falling asleep herself.

Carmilla woke up the next morning to the sound of birds chirping outside and a stream of sunlight coming in from the dorm’s one window. She sat up and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes before fully realizing where she was. She turned to her left and saw that Laura was already awake, she was hunched over on her desk, doing what sounded like writing.

“Hey.” Carmilla said, sounding groggy.

Laura jumped a little at the sound, she was so focused on what she was doing, but she turned around from her desk to look at Carmilla. “Hey sleepyhead. You fell asleep here and I didn’t really see a point in disturbing you, so you spent the night.”

Even though Carmilla still didn’t think that her and Laura were on the best terms, she thought that it was sweet of her to allow her to stay over. She even put a blanket on her. It looked like it was the blanket straight off of her bed too. Carmilla gave it a little more thought and she decided that she could possibly become friends with Laura. She hadn’t really had any close friends for a long time, and she thought it would be nice to have one again.

“Would you uhm… would you like to go out with me sometime?” Carmilla sputtered, “I mean it doesn’t have to be like, on a date, I mean it could be on a date if you wanted it to be on a date but, it doesn’t have to be.”

Laura beamed. “I think I’d like that very much.”

“Great! So, how does 10 pm sound? Friday? I kind of really really want to see Insidious 3, it just came out and I’m a huge fan of those movies. We don’t have to go see that though, if you don’t want to. I was just thinking that since-“

“That sounds great. Here I’ll give you my number too, just in case something comes up.” Laura scribbled down her number on a piece of paper and got up to hand it to Carmilla. Carmilla took it and put it in the pocket of her jeans, which she was still wearing from the night before. She got up from the couch and started making her way towards the door.

“I should probably go, I need to do some stuff for class but, I’ll see you on Friday. I’ll text you later ok?”

“Ok, I’ll hold you to that.” Laura said with a chuckle.

Carmilla smiled and left the dorm, closing the door behind her.

So it turned out that Laura wasn’t very good with horror movies. She squeezed Carmilla’s arm the whole time and she held her hands up to her face and only peeped at the screen through tiny cracks in her fingers throughout it. Carmilla thought it was kind of adorable, but she felt a bit bad for dragging Laura to see something that would probably give her nightmares. After the movie was done, they went back to Laura’s dorm.

“Why did you let me take you to that movie if you were going to be so scared, cupcake?” Carmilla looked genuinely concerned.

Laura blushed, it was like she’d been caught in a lie, which technically, she had. “I just wanted to do something that you wanted to do. Plus it wasn’t _that_ bad.”

Carmilla rolled her eyes, “Oh please, you were grasping onto me for dear life the entire time. Don’t even act like you weren’t.”

Laura smiled, “Well you didn’t seem like you had a problem with it while we were in the theatre…”

“I never said it was a problem,” Carmilla laughed, “I just want to make sure you’re not going to have any nightmares over this movie. I don’t want you freaking out. I could stay the night again if you’d like me to…”

“Yes! I, uhm, would very much like that actually. I’m glad you suggested it.”

Carmilla smiled at her, “I’ll just go get ready for bed in my dorm room and then I’ll come back up here ok? Should be like 10 minutes.”

“Ok, hurry back.”

When Carmilla was done getting ready, she made her way back into Laura’s room and started getting settled onto the couch. But Laura looked disappointed.

“I was kind of hoping you’d sleep with me? I mean not _sleep with me_ , but just, sleep in my bed with me?” She blushed.

Carmilla was happy to oblige, so she joined Laura in bed, and they fell asleep tangled up in each other’s arms.

A week later, Carmilla was walking down the street when she spotted Laura’s car going in the same direction she was headed in. She started thinking about all the times they’d hung out since they first met, and how different Laura was now than she was when they first met. How different she had become _herself_ since they’d met. But before she could think another thought, directly ahead of her at the street corner, a car ran a red light and smashed into the side of Laura’s car. Carmilla’s face fell and she started running as fast as she could to get to the end of the street. She didn’t know for sure if it was Laura in the car, but even the thought of it terrified her. She couldn’t even begin to think about losing someone who’d meant so much to her.

When she reached the car, she pulled the driver’s door open, and she held back tears. It was Laura. She tried to shake Laura awake, calling her name several times, but it was no use. There was a giant gash on her head from where her head had hit the steering wheel. She was limp.

The next thing she heard was sirens. Paramedics had shown up and they were starting to drag Laura out of her car and into the back of their vehicle. Carmilla begged to be able to join her but they insisted that she couldn’t. They were in a rush to get her to the hospital, and Carmilla didn’t want to get in their way any further, so she let them take her. The guy who ran into Laura had been drinking. Carmilla could smell it on his breath when she approached him. She was ready to beat the living shit out of him, but she couldn’t muster up the energy. All she could do was cry.

After about 5 minutes of her trying to stop herself from crying anymore, she got into her car and drove to the hospital that Laura was taken to. When she entered the hospital, she went straight to the front desk and asked where they’d put her, or if they had any updates. The nurse told her that they couldn’t really give out any information yet, but she was still alive. Carmilla was relieved. She sluggishly walked over to the waiting room and sat down in one of the chairs. The 7 o’clock news was blaring on one of the many TV’s, but she couldn’t focus on it. She was drowning in thoughts of Laura.

She pulled out her phone from her pocket and decided to look through the messages they’d sent to each other in the past day. The last one that Laura had sent said “You know what Carm? I think I really like you.” And Carmilla had responded by saying “I think I really like you too, cupcake.”

Carmilla could feel tears continuing to form in her eyes. Her chest was heaving, her breathing was sharp. She started thinking about the possibility of Laura dying. Of never being able to talk to her again. Never being able to talk to her about all of the TV shows and movies she loved to watch when she was little. Never learning about the first concert she’d been to, or the first time she read her very favourite book. She’d never be able to know all of these things if Laura was gone. And that was the last thought she had before she drifted off to sleep, hot tears still streaming down her face.

She was awoken by the nurse from the front desk shaking her shoulder. They told her that Laura’s room’s right down the hall and that she’s allowed to visit with her, but she regretted to inform her that Laura was in a coma.

“W-what are the chances of her waking up?”

“They look pretty good honey, there’s about an 80% chance that she’ll wake up and everything will be fine. I’ll be praying for you.”

Carmilla rushed down the hall where the nurse had told her that Laura was kept. She entered the room and saw her lying in the bed, motionless, and tears began welling in her eyes again. She scooted a chair next to Laura’s bed and took one of her hands in both of hers. She rested her forehead on the side of the bed and began to tell Laura all the things she’d never gotten a chance to tell her. She told her that she thinks she might love her. She might be in love with her.

After a couple hours, Carmilla began to doze off, but she was woken up by someone shaking her shoulder. It was Laura. Carmilla looked into her eyes and started sobbing uncontrollably. She got up from her chair and hugged her, Laura hugging back, and saying that she’s so happy she’s ok. Laura says that she’s happy Carmilla was the first one she saw when she woke up. Laura confesses that she heard everything Carmilla had said before, when she thought that Laura was sleeping, and she said that she feels the same way. She loves her too. Carmilla smiles at her.

“I’m glad to hear you feel that way cutie.” Carmilla says, smiling, “Is there anything I can get you? Something to drink maybe?”

“Yeah, I’d love a hot chocolate.”

“Coming right up. I’ll be right back.” Carmilla left the room briefly to go get some hot chocolate for Laura and some water for herself.

When Carmilla came back into the room, it was empty. She started shaking and dropped the hot chocolate and water on the floor and ran to the front desk. She was assuming the worst.

“Where’s Laura? Did they move her? Was she released? I didn’t think you’d release her this quickly, I mean she only just woke up…”

“Woke up? I’m sorry honey but Laura never woke up. She passed only a few minutes ago. Her vitals were giving up and there was virtually nothing we could to do help her. I’m so, so sorry.”

“But, she was wide awake, she talked to me. She…” Carmilla drifted off and started sobbing. The doctor came around from the back of the desk to the front and offered Carmilla a hug, which she gladly accepted.

“Honey, I’m so sorry. She was gone from the minute she came into the hospital.”

A week later, Carmilla took Laura’s book back to the library. ‘I wouldn’t want Laura to be responsible for my own irresponsibility.’ She thought to herself. As if Laura were still with her.

After she returned the book, she went back to Laura’s dorm room. It had been emptied out, but there was still a Dr. Who poster on one of the walls, so Carmilla decided she’d take it down herself. She placed it on the desk and decided that she’d take the poster with her when she went back into her own dorm. A little while had passed and Carmilla decided that she’d lay down on Laura’s bed. It still smelled like her, which was comforting. She got her phone out of her pocket and looked at the last text she’d sent her. The night of the accident, Carmilla sent Laura “I love you” but Laura never got to read it.

She put her phone down in an effort to stop herself from crying, but it didn’t work. Tears formed in her eyes and she could feel her breathing becoming irregular again. She started sobbing into Laura’s pillow, breathing in all that remained of her.

Then her phone buzzed. ‘One message from Laura’. Carmilla thought that this had to be some kind of joke, but she looked at it anyway. “I love you too, Carm.” The message was dated the day that she had gotten into her accident. Carmilla didn’t know how she’d known. Carmilla thought that maybe that’s what true love meant. Never needing to say ‘I love you’ for the other person to know that you do.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to yell at me hmu at tinygaycarm.tumblr.com


End file.
